


Dark Bird is Home

by Ragingbulldurham



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: F/M, Post Movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 20:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4151388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ragingbulldurham/pseuds/Ragingbulldurham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"It’s not your fault,” Owen says over and over again. She makes a noncommittal noise, and he cups her face between his palms, gently turning it so that she has to look at him. “It’s not.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Bird is Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first try at these two, so hopefully it's acceptable. The title is from the song by The Tallest Man on Earth. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!

It takes three days after they make it back to San Diego before she breaks.

She holds it together through all of the immediate aftermath. She gets her sister and her family on the plane back to Madison, promising that she'll see them soon. She answers question after question about the enclosure, the security, and the interrogation enrages her more than anything else. And she's happy to feel that anger. Feel it course through her. Anger is better than the paralyzing fear.

It's not until she's in her quiet apartment that something in her snaps. Owen isn't home, he's out running some sort of errand or another, and for the first time in a long time she's absolutely alone.

They have dinner plans for the evening- their official second date- and she turns on the shower and waits for it to get hot. The silence in the apartment is almost stifling, and she's grateful for the sound of the pounding water on the ceramic tiled walls. It's better the deafening roar that she hears when there's a moment of quiet.

She climbs into the shower and turns the water even hotter, letting it cascade over her. She's fine until she isn't, and then suddenly she can't breathe, choking on her own sobs. She's hot, _too_ hot, and she turns off the water and slides down the wall until she's sitting on the cool floor of the shower, her arms wrapped around herself. It's where Owen finds her when he comes home.

He calls out her name first, and then his voice rises in pitch, panic starting to set in a little. She wants to call back out, but his name gets stuck in her throat and she buries her head in her knees instead. She's trembling when he finally throws open the bathroom door.

"Oh, Claire," he breathes, and drops down beside her, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around her, enveloping her in his arms. He tucks tiny kisses into her hair, wiping at the tears on her face with his thumb. Claire grips his t-shirt in her hands, twisting the fabric between her fingers. “Breathe, sweetheart, breathe.”

"They're dead because of me,” she sobs quietly, and his heart breaks. “They're all dead because of me.”

“No, no,” he soothes. “No.” He stands, bringing her with him, and Claire wraps her arms around his shoulders and buries her face in the crook of his neck. “No, Claire, you _saved_ them. You saved everyone.”

They stay there like that for a while, wrapped up in each other, Claire's sobs finally dying down to ragged sighs. They miss their dinner reservation, and instead tumble back towards the bathroom, Claire's kisses turning feverish, and Owen dropping clothes as they go.

Afterwards, as they lay, limbs tangled, Owen continues to murmur into her skin that she's not responsible.

And oh, God, does she want to believe him.

* * *

 

"CLAIRE!” Owen sits straight up, heart pounding, her name dying on his tongue.

_Claire_.

The dreams are the same. She comes flying around the corner, the flare lit in her hand, her feet hitting the pavement, and then there’s a flash of teeth and she’s gone. He wakes up with the sounds of her screams ringing in his ears, and the taste of bile in the back of his throat.

“Hey, hey,” and then she’s there, voice warm and fuzzy with sleep, “it’s okay, we’re _both_ okay. I’m here.” She sits up and pulls him into her arms, and Owen buries his head in her chest and holds onto her with such force that he’s half afraid he will leave bruises. Her fingers card through his hair as he tries to get his breathing back under control.

“We’re safe, we’re safe now,” she repeats over and over again. “It’s okay, we’re safe.”

And if he closes his eyes and focuses on just the words out of her mouth, he can start to believe her.

* * *

There’s not a conversation about him moving in.

He just comes to stay one day and never leaves again, and that’s fine by her. She wants to be there when he wakes up in the middle of the night, his brow sweaty and his chest heaving. She wants to be able to tug him into her arms and try to calm him down. She _owes_ him that.

_I told them to go in. I told them to go in. It’s my fault. I told them. I did. It’s my fault._

It runs through her head on a constant loop. The media can’t decide whether to vilify or canonize her, and she can’t decide which of those would be worse. She’s _not_ a hero, and the guilt is so heavy that sometimes she can’t breathe.

“It’s not your fault,” Owen says over and over again. She makes a noncommittal noise, and he cups her face between his palms, gently turning it so that she has to look at him. “It’s _not_.”

And sometimes she believes him.

* * *

He gets a job at the San Diego Zoo, and it’s comforting to be working with animals again.

The Masrani Corporation offers Claire a new position at the corporate headquarters in San Diego- partly because the public has decided that she’s a hero and they need all the good publicity they can get- and she reluctantly accepts.

“I’m not good at anything else,” she argues. “What else would I do?” And he thinks, _you can do anything_.

But he tells her he stands by whatever she chooses, and she chooses familiar and he can’t blame her.

Familiar to him is a set of sharp teeth and a low growl, and familiar to her is board members, investors, high heels and pencil skirts.

“Is it crazy to work for them still?” She asks as they lay in bed, the night before her first day back, Owen spooned behind her. And he brushes light kisses to her bare skin, and shakes his head.

“No, someone has to make sure they aren’t trying to reopen the park,” he reminds her. It’s a shared fear. That the people who weren’t _there_ will only see the bottom line, will want to corral the animals and reopen.

Those people who didn’t feel the warm, rancid breath of the Indominus Rex, as their hearts beat painfully hard and too loudly against their ribcages. Those people who- like Claire used to- only see numbers on a white page.

He doesn’t for a minute believe that the almighty dollar won’t win over common sense, but he does believe that Claire will do everything in her power to stop that from happening, and it makes him sleep better knowing that at least she’s the voice of reason in a chorus of rampant greed.

He may not believe Masrani has the best of intentions, but he believes in her.

* * *

The press dies down after a few months.

They move onto a new story, a new disaster. It's a relief, finally, when the photographers stop crouching in the bushes outside of their apartment complex. When the stares in the grocery store, in restaurants, and in coffee shops finally stop.

They settle down to a quiet life. They go to work, they come home, they make dinner and Facetime with Karen and the boys in Wisconsin. They make plans for trips to visit Madison, and they talk about maybe taking a vacation somewhere.

“No where tropical,” Claire insists. “Paris? Italy?” And Owen kisses her, and grins against her lips.

“Wherever you want to go,” he assures her. “I'd follow you anywhere.”

And she believes him.


End file.
